Charlie Levi and Alex Weil founded Charlex (with the name being a portmanteau of their first names) in 1979 "with $1,600 and a phone" to support their rock band and to work on commercials.
When the band folded, Levi and Weil began working at Charlex full-time.
Both projects helped Charlex get more work throughout the 1980s, including network IDs for the Fred/Alan agency, commercials, and opening titles for various programs.
In 1986 Charlex produced the groundbreaking Cherry Coke ad that featured multiple composited layers of digital video which was a technical tour de force at the time.
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